The present invention relates to decorative lighting fixtures, and more particularly to garden and other outdoor lighting fixtures, as well as indoor fixtures such as chandeliers, sconces and special purpose decorations such as Christmas tree lights and night lights.
Traditional crystal-light fixture lenses produce rainbow effects by refraction of light as the light passes through various prismaticly shaped portions of the lens. It has also been discovered that rainbow effects can be produced by etching or otherwise forming grating patterns on ordinary glass or plastic. Methods for producing these gratings in the prior art for simulating the effects of prismatic crystal lenses are unfortunately labor intensive in that they require cutting, sandblasting, etc. Also, the visual effects that are produced by such substitutes are significantly poorer than the traditional crystal lens fixtures.
Thus there is a need for decorative lighting fixtures that provide visual effects at least comparable to those produced by prismatic crystal lenses and that can be mass produced at low cost.